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Uzbekistan:Central Asia’s over-dependence on cotton
potentially destabilizing- says expert |
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2005-2-17
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The prospects for the country’s all-important cotton crop are bright in 2005, say officials of Uzbekistan. But, Michael Hall -- an analyst with Crisis Group (formerly called the International Crisis Group), this kind of overdependence on cotton may have many destabilizing ramifications.
Hall is the author of an upcoming study on Central Asian agriculture contends that the reliance of Uzbekistan and its neighbors on cotton production has much greater source of potential social trouble than the drugs trade, [as] it affects millions of people’s lives directly," he said. Hall’s Crisis Group report is expected to be published in the coming weeks.
According to an official at Uzkholpkoprom, Uzbekistan’s cotton monopoly, a 6.6 percent rise in cotton fiber exports in 2005 over the previous-year’s total, a news agency reported.
This year 3.6 million tons of raw cotton is expected to be harvested, up slightly from 2004. Cotton-fiber exports earned almost $900 million in 2003 for the country. Incidentally, Uzbekistan is the fifth largest cotton producer in the world.
Other neighbouring countries of Uzbekistan like Tajikistan and Turkmenistan will also face similar problems despite optimistic forecast. It is the overdependence on cotton that may harm the countries economically even as government officials seem more apt to either deny existing problems and abuses in the system, or are quicker to justify current practices as economically necessary, says Hall.
The reliance of Central Asian governments on cotton production "necessitates a tight system of political and social control," Hall said during a February 8 presentation of his findings at the Open Society Institute in New York.
Turning to the state of farmers Hall said they often labor under oppressive conditions for inadequate wages. "People who work in the cotton fields, who plant it and grow it, are not the ones who derive the benefit from it," Hall said. In Tajikistan, for example, "farmers who grow cotton are far more likely to be poor than those who grow potatoes, which is a bit of a paradox considering cotton is the number one cash crop."
More will be the conditions severe particularly for women, Hall said. "Women do most of the work and reap much fewer of the benefits" than their male counterparts, he said. The post-Soviet economic collapse has forced a significant number of women into the region’s agricultural sector, and officials have taken advantage of the labor glut to keep wages at a subsistence level. Women appear less likely to press local authorities and administrators to improve conditions, Hall added.
"The only reason many women work in the cotton fields at all is to be given the right to harvest the cotton stalks . . . [which] are one of the main sources for fuel in the winter months in rural communities," Hall said.
All this will lead to social problems in Central Asia. Hall said some women seeking to escape exploitation on cotton farms would take to more dangerous solutions like prostitution. The increase in rural prostitution "opens up avenues for human trafficking and other forms of exploitation." Hall said.
"The governments need to get out of agriculture," he said. To encourage diversification, farmers should be given greater control over what crops to plant, and how much to charge for their produce. He also emphasized that "any reform [to reduce the dependence on cotton] needs to be part of a matrix of economic and political reform not solely directed toward agriculture." |
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